“We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve the country,” President Barrack Obama said. “We should be celebrating their willingness to step forward and show such courage … especially when we are fighting two wars.”
Obama was met with a standing ovation, by a room of about 3,000 members of the Human Rights Campaign in October 2009. HRC is the gay civil rights advocacy group that once praised Obama for his action on the policy. Since then, they have become critical of the long delay to change the law.
Human rights activist and many government and military officials have been vocal about repealing the law, but it is no easy task.
Gen. James F. Amos said Friday that lifting the ban, “has strong potential for disruption and will no doubt divert leadership attention away from an almost singular focus of preparing units for combat.”
The controversy’s culmination has been a long time coming.
Bill Clinton made the first attempt to lift the law that stopped gays from serving in the military in 1993. Military officials fought the lift and “don’t ask don’t tell” policy was created as a compromise.
Today, there are at least 66,000 gays in the military and 1 million gay veterans in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at UCLA.
The Pentagon reports that 75 percent of young Americans are ineligible to serve in our military because of inadequate education, criminal records or weight problems.
And yet, it has been reported, as of 2003 more than 750 mission-critical service members where released on DADT basis. More than 320 of those members, had skills in important languages such as Arabic, Korean and Farsi.
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Denise Cordova, Manager and Coordinator of the Office of Affirmation and Equal Rights Opportunity at the University of Nevada, Reno, speaks her mind on military discrimination
Footage Courtesy of U.S. Military. Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, Graduation Ceremony.
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Obama first expressed his intention to change DADT when he was campaigning for presidency in 2008. In January 2010, he created a loose timetable for the change in his State of the Union Address. He said this would be the year he would end “don’t ask don’t tell.”
He created the bill, which sought to repeal the ban -along with authorizing $567 billion in Pentagon programs spending and an additional $159 billion for overseas operations, including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In May of 2010 it passed in the House. But, in September the bill was blocked by the Senate.
“There is a tremendous frustration on the part of many involved,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was one of the Senate members who voted against lifting the ban. He said he is waiting for the Pentagon survey of active-duty forces and their families, to be released before they pass the vote.
The anonymous survey was sent to 400,000 active service members through e-mail, seeking their opinions on open gays in the military. The Pentagon survey was released Nov. 30 and unfortunately, it raised more questions then it answered.
When the survey was leaked in mid November it was reported that over 70 percent of those surveyed do not mind the repeal.
Once the full survey was released it showed this statistic refers to the question, if a homosexual in one’s unit would affect the unit’s ability to “work together to get the job done.” The report states 70 percent predicted a positive, mixed, or no effect outcome.
Late in the survey, 61.7 percent of service members predicted at least some negative effects from the repeal.
Unfortunately, the survey fails to ask the question, are you in favor or against the DADT repeal. Furthermore, out of the 400,000 service members questioned only 28 percent responded to the survey.
Lawmakers now need more time to fully understand what this survey means. Wednesday Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex) said, “This is not something we ought to be jamming through during a lame-duck session without adequate time to understand its impact on our all-volunteer military or our military readiness.”
But, Joint Chief’s of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen states, “society on the whole wasn’t as accepting or as tolerant as it is now,” he said. “So we didn’t speak of such things or of how little it really mattered that the sailor next to you was gay. But America has moved on. And if you look closely at this study, I think you’ll find that America’s military is, by and large, ready to move on as well.”
Last year had the fewest discharges based on DADT since the ban was created in 1993. Out of more than 14,000 discharged only 428 were released in 2009. By comparison, 1,273 soldiers were discharged in 2001 due to “don’t ask don’t tell.”
In a poll done by CNN on Nov. 17 it showed 72 percent of Americans support the repeal.
Do you feel the the law restricting open gays to serve in the military should be repealed?survey software
Denise Cordova says that fear is holding our politicians back. “They need to start looking at how other militaries have allowed gays and lesbians to serve openly and it has not torn them apart,” she says.
Australia, Germany, France, Spain, Canada, Israel and 30 other known countries, allow open gays to join the military, according to Pentagon reports.
Now, the “don’t ask don’t tell” Senate vote, which was originally set for Wednesday, has been postponed. Sen. Susane Collins (R-Maine), the chief of GOP negotiator, asked for a delay.
The attitude of Republican senators is they do not want to move forward with any additional legislation until the tax package is completed.
The Senate will move forward with negotiations today, Thursday Dec. 9.
